Litchfield Enquirer

The Mormons.—The delusion got up by Joe Smith, is one of the most remarkable, as well as one of the most successful of the age. Its success in fact has placed the Mormons in a situation to excite somewhat deeper interest than that of mere curiosity.

The Mormons are skilful in argument, so that they contend with no little success against all their opponents. They adopt the whole of our Bible, and claim that they have an additional revelation which was communicated to Joe Smith on the golden plates.—They say that the spirit of prophecy is an essential sign of the true church, and boldly stake their pretensions on the possession of this gift. They say that no true church has existed on earth since prophesying ceased, at or near the apostles' time, and that the church has now been restored, with the new revelation and the returning gift of prophecy. They claim of course that to the Saints belong the earth, and seem to have no doubt that they shall possess it.

They seem indeed to have some reason for their expectations, for their numbers in this country are already estimated at a hundred thousand, and as many more in Europe. Their converts comprise a large number of men of intelligence, smartness, and not a few who have stood high in the Christian Churches of various denominations, as men of piety and excellence. Their city of Nauvoo is growing in a manner unprecedented; men of property are constantly joining them, and adding their whole estates to the common stock. They have acquired so much political importance as to procure of the Legislature of Illinois an act of incorporation, authorizing the Mormons to maintain a standing army of a thousand men.

Smith and Rigdon have ordained twelve Apostles, who have been anointed for the work by a sight of the golden plates. One or two of them, we believe, have already deserted the standard and disclosed the designs of their great prophet.

When we see a miserable creature like Smith all at once putting on the garb of sanctity, and guided by pretended inspiration, digging into the side of a hill, and there secluding himself for months, and then coming forth with the pretence that he has found golden plates on which are written a new revelation, which revelation is nothing more nor less than a piece of imaginative writing left in manuscript by a deceased clergyman, and when we see such a fraud believed in, and adopted by enlightened men, and spreading more rapidly than any system of truth ever did, we are amazed. What is man and all his boast of intelligence, and what has the knowledge the present day made man but a fool—the dupe of every knave! It is enough to make one believe that if the Supreme Ruler should withdraw his care from our world to New Zealand, the Mormon might spread abroad, which would to and the human race in the deepest ignorance.—N. Y. Journal of Commerce